Alumni Agenda

From an MBA class project to 20m users ? The start-up story of busuu.com

IE, one of the leading higher education institutions in the world, would like to invite you to our upcoming Master Class in London.

You will have the opportunity to experience what a real class at IE is like and discuss ideas on a current topic. You will see the difference between traditional teaching methodologies and the methods used by the best schools in the world, based on real cases, team work and interactive study. Participants will also receive an introduction to the school and its programs and they will be able to directly ask our regional representatives any questions they may have.

busuu.com was founded by Adrian Hilti and Bernhard Niesner while they were attending their international MBA in IE Business School in 2007. 4 years later, the website is the largest social network for language learning with currently more than 20m users. Every day, more than 40,000 new users sign up to the service and in 2011, the company was named best education start-up in Europe by TechCrunch. Bernhard, busuu.com´s CEO will share his key learnings since the foundation of the company till their recent move of their HQs to London.

Bernhard Niesner (33 and originally from Vienna, Austria) is the CEO and Co-Founder of busuu.com. Before founding busuu.com, Bernhard worked at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in the area of consumer goods. In addition to his current role at busuu.com, he is Associated Professor at IE Business Schools in the area of online marketing.

Bernhard graduated summa cum laude in International Business from the University of Vienna and holds an MBA (with honors) from IE Business School. In 2009 he was awarded "Entrepreneur of the year" in Austria. Bernhard recently moved to London and in his free time, he relaxes while playing the piano, loves skiing in winter times and kitesurfing during the summer.